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Tough news from out of Ottawa. GM Bryan Murray was recently diagnosed with cancer and will begin treatment immediately. My thoughts are with him for what will be a difficult battle ahead. 

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Chris Tanev gets $2 million this year. Kyle Quincey gets $4.25 million.

Zack Kassian gets $1.75 million this year. Benoit Pouliot gets $4 million.

Ah, the joy of being unrestricted versus restricted…

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Pens GM Jim Rutherford had this to say about their first-round pick from this year Kasperi Kapanen:

“We have to keep in mind that Kapanen could come in and make this team,” he said. “He’s played with men [in Finland] for two years. He’s a good player.”

So that’s an unexpected and interesting quote. Rutherford is hit and miss with these kind of statements. I remember he said it about Zach Boychuk (boo) but also about Jeff Skinner (Yay!)

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Jokerit is trying to get Teemu Selanne to play one more year – for them, in his old uniform.

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Last week I had an article in The Hockey News on my 10 picks from the 2014 draft in terms of fantasy value. I re-posted it here for you to read.

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Some minor moves that caught my eye over the last few days…

Carolina re-signed Jared Staal to a two-way contract. I don’t think they were going to let him go even if they felt that he really sucked. After all, his two brothers are the center of this team.

Calgary signed Brad Thiessen, I guess to be their AHL backup. Because I can’t see them taking starts away from a homegrown talent in Joni Ortio whom they’ve spent so much time and money on.

The Leafs signed Troy Bodie to a one-year deal. I didn’t see this not happening, since he’s married to the president’s daughter. But this is a great signing as long as he (and Leo Komarov) replace Colton Orr and Frazer McLaren. Please.

Interesting to see Dallas sign Bill Ranford’s son Brendan to a three-year deal. The Flyers let him walk, and then Dallas gave him a training camp invite last year. He earned a minor-league deal with their affiliate and played well enough for a contract. I’m just surprised that they went full-on with the three years. Good for him.

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Plenty of development camp news, as they are opening for a lot of teams today (or last week) and throughout this week. Here are links to more information, rosters, etc.:

Anaheim

Calgary’s (already underway) and a Bill Arnold interview

Columbus

Detroit

Florida’s development camp

Nashville

Tampa Bay (some good stuff on Anthony DeAngelo) – and final stats here. Also draws your attention to tournament leading scorer Jeff Costello – he was acquired in the Jason Garrison trade and it looks like the Lightning did some fine scouting work on this guy to get him into the deal like that.

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Here is an interesting article on what Tampa Bay has left from their Brad Richards trade. He was moved to Dallas along with Johan Holmqvist for Mike Smith (left via free agency), Jussi Jokinen (waived) and Jeff Halpern. It was Halpern who ended up getting the Lightning the return they still have to this day (since the other two guys left for nothing).

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Anton Karlsson, drafted in the third round by Arizona (and he’s also Erik’s brother), was drafted by Erie of the OHL and it sounds like they’re going to convince him to come over and play in the OHL. Get the lowdown on him here.

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And finally, as is DobberHockey tradition around these here parts, it’s time to honor a solid fantasy player. Alexei Kovalev has retired from hockey. The story I remember most about him was when he was a rookie or a sophomore and he liked to hog the puck a little and take long shifts. Well, this pissed off his coach, Mike Keenan, so to teach him a lesson Keenan left him out there for the final six or seven minutes of the period. Kovalev later said that he really enjoyed it and had a lot of fun out there. So, uh, lesson was learned I guess.

Kovalev in the early days was called a Russian Wayne Gretzky. It didn’t quite turn out that way, but he did have some great seasons. It was frustrating for fantasy owners because he’d have so many bad ones sprinkled in. And nothing consistent about it either. He had seasons of 45 points, 65 and 47 as he turned 34. On the decline? Nope. He followed that up with 84! How do you see that coming? And then he slipped and had seasons of 65 and 49 but you still held out hope because of that sudden 84-point thing. But no, this time he really was done.

His best season in fantasy hockey was 2000-01 with Pittsburgh. He had 44 goals, 95 points and was even nice enough to give us 96 PIM. Here are Kovalev’s 10 best goals of his career: